Gus Hansen's Image Play

[Shaman]

Gus Hansen's call with a 10-8 was just an image play. There was relatively very little at stake so the rewards for that specific tournament was not important. But the image that the play could project to a lot of people (some of whom might find themselves sitting across Gus in the future) has a tremendous amount of "equity". Advertising money well spent that some have argued might have actually been free.

[Dan Mezick]

Gus Hansen has alot of class. He showed it last night in the way he dealt with the overly-familiar, borderline obnoxious Phil Laak.

Gus is literally a very cool guy. Laak needed a restraining order served to him during this event, invading personal space, touching Hansen's chipstack, etc.

Gus was surely not amused, yet kept his utterly quiet cool and even eliminated 'Lack' along the way to the finish.

[bernie]

Like the image play he did in the WSOP with 85s that got him knocked out?

I like gus, but he does catch/chases cards quite a bit. He's bound to miss and get knocked out on some of those calls i've seen him do.

b

[Scotch78]

Here's my take on the great dane's looseness . . . hand reading/psychology is probably the most important single skill at high stakes, and he's found a great way to combat that. Hand reading is basically a process of elimination. You start with 169 possibilities and make eliminations based upon how people play each round. The catch is that all streets are not equal. The vast majority of possible hands are ruled out pre-flop, with later streets just fine-tuning the initial read (of course there are some exceptions though). Well, with a loose player you can't make enough pre-flop eliminations to perform the small adjustments on the later streets. The results: in the Poker Superstars Invitational against Howard Lederer, Johnny Chan, Barry Greenstein, Doyle Brunson, T.J. Cloutier, Phil Ivey, and one other player I can't remember, Gus Hansen got paid off more than anyone else. Anything that gives you an advantage against players of that caliber is a world-class strategy IMO.

Scott

[tdomeski]

He flopped a pair and a flush draw. Against one opponent he was the favorite. .he couldn't account for the other guy with the higher spade draw to come along for the ride too.

Gus is good.

Don't kid yourself by thinking otherwise.

[Dov]

This was not necessarily just an image play.

Gus had a very good idea of what his opponents thought of him.

He also had a very good read on 'the magician' and figured that he was in a coin flip position. His read was accurate and he hit the board.

This is really no different than playing AKs against a PP. As long as you know that the pair is smaller than both of your cards, you are a coin flip to win. Here is what 2 dimes has to say about it:

cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
7c 7h 872441 50.95 829841 48.46 10022 0.59 0.512
Td 8d 829841 48.46 872441 50.95 10022 0.59 0.488

Add to this the fact that Gus raised first (if I remember correctly) and you have an image play that says - if you make a play at me, there is a good chance I will call you. Even with Ten high.

To the inexperienced, it looks ridiculous. I'm sure that he had a very solid read, though and decided that it was just like AKs against an underpair.

Dov

[bernie]

I happen to think gus is overrated. Though i do like to watch him play. His style fits tourneys well, imo. But we'll see in a year or so where he's at.

The raise behind him was significant. It also depends on what the other player holds as to whether he's the favorite.

With 2 guys throwing that many chips in behind him, he can't really think he's in a great spot even given his hand. What is he putting the other 2 on to put that much in? He gambled and finally lost. Had he folded, he'd have had plenty of chips left.

Sorry, but i'm not on the hanson bandwagon.

b

[Scotch78]

Guess I'll step off the bandwagon for a minute. When Gus is cold the reverse holds true, he will pay off his opponents too often. So I agree with you, his style fits tourneys well. I don't think it would work in a cash game.

Scott